The Time You Lost Your Mind
by sunshine2006578
Summary: "Then be crazy. Be crazy with Boo. Be crazy with Callum. Be crazy with me." RoryXStephen one-shot! Rated M! R&R?


**Disclaimer: I unfortunately do not own **_**The Name of the Star**_**. That belongs to the lovely, talented Maureen Johnson. Nor do I own the song **_**You Know the Way**_** by Right the Stars, from which the opening quotes come from. (The band name and the name of the book seem very metaphorical and poetic together though, do they not?) Enjoy!**

* * *

_Thinking about the time you lost your mind. _

_There's always something sneaking up behind._

…

_I forget sometimes that _

_Life is beautiful._

…

_Tell me there's still something _

_That you need. _

- Right the Stars

* * *

Rory stares at her mother for a moment. How do you answer a question like that? How do you explain away the noise of someone's soul exploding?

She decides not to. Evading is always a good solution.

"I'm not leaving."

Okay. Those words work. Those words will do.

Her mother stares at her in disbelief, utter confusion in her eyes. "What?"

"I said, I'm not leaving. Wexford. I'm not leaving Wexford."

Her mother's eyes grow tired, and Call Me Claudia stares at her with something akin to respect.

"Rory, we've been over this-"

Rory interrupts her. If there's anything she's learned from all this, it's that life is incredibly short, and often controlled by someone other than who it belongs to. Neither fact sits well with her anymore.

Maybe if she were home, back in Louisiana with nothing to do but hang out in the Wal-Mart parking lot, things would be different. Maybe she'd still be trudging along after her parents to help clean out the eight fridges once a month. Maybe she'd nod her head mutely when her parents told her to do something.

But this is not Louisiana.

_She_ is the weapon now. The only thing that can defend the team. She'll be damned- possibly literally- if she leaves them now.

London is home. Wexford and Goodwin's Court are home. Stephen, Callum, Boo, Jazza, Jerome, even Alistair… they're home.

And what the hell is there to do in Bristol, anyway?

"No, Mom. You and Dad have been over this. You and Dad decided! How is that fair? I mean, _I'm the one that got slashed_! If anyone's opinion should be taken in to account, it's mine."

Her father had arrived on the scene now. "Rory-"

"No. I'm not leaving."

"It's not safe, sweetie-"

"You didn't raise me like this!" The tactic is desperate, and she knows it, but she has to try. She can't leave London she can't leave London she can't leave London. "You didn't raise me to run away! You didn't raise me to not be brave. If I leave here, he wins. If I let what happened here scare me off, then he's done his job! He's dead, anyway. He can't hurt anyone now."

Oh, the irony.

Her mother is faltering, and her father is looking at her with immense pride.

"Please don't make me leave. Please don't let him take this from me."

She can visibly see the resolve on her mother's face crumble. A sigh, and then, "Alright, Rory. Alright. You can stay."

* * *

Jerome's kisses aren't the same as they used to be.

His lips are just… lips. They aren't anything extraordinary. His tongue rubs against hers in the same way that used to thrill her, but now making out just makes her feel tired.

This worries her. A lot.

Maybe the person she always saw by her side in London wasn't Jerome, either. Maybe the person was always meant to be an apparition, a shadow, a ghost. Literally.

She is alone with the dead. They find her all the time now. She is beginning to feel kind of dead herself.

* * *

"Come on, Rory. Just try it. One more time."

"No," she bites out; her face spasms as she tries to hold back the sobs.

She's exploded five ghosts today. They've discovered that if she doesn't mean to touch them directly, if she only brushes against them or hands them something and their fingers touch, that they'll be okay. But if she directly, purposefully touches any of them for any reason, the bright light will flash, the bang will sound, and they will be gone.

Each time she does it, it wears her out a little more. All that energy flowing through her body and then abruptly leaving it is starting to take its toll.

Besides, she doesn't think she can terminate the one they're pointing at.

She's young, only five or six. She keeps calling out for her mother, clutching her woolen coat around her tighter. She died in one of the raids during the war. This part of the Tube hasn't been used since the 40s. Her eyes are so wide and frightened and sad.

"We know you can control it. There has to be a way to control it. Just touch her. Focus on _not_ blowing her up," Callum directs, his voice smooth and soft. It echoes off the stone walls and reverberates through Rory's brain.

"_No_."

"Please just try it. One more, just this one. Then we'll all go get some chips or something," Boo coaxes.

She knows there is no way out of this one. They won't let her leave until she does this.

_One more time._

"Okay," she breathes, and she slowly approaches the little girl.

The tiny creature backs itself into a corner, blinking fearfully, and Rory knows she'd be crying if she could.

"Hi, sweetie."

"Mummy…"

"I know. I know, I do. You must miss her a lot."

"Mummy…"

Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

"Just give me your hand. Maybe I can help you find her."

"Mummy?"

"Yes, dear. Come on now."

The little girl places her cold, translucent hand in Rory's warm alive one. Instantly the energy comes, instantly the bright white light begins to glow.

This time, Rory fights. She pushes at the feeling, pushes with all her might. She starts to get dizzy and sees bright colors mixing in among all the white.

The little girl's eyes meet hers. Grow wide with confusion and horror.

Rory is gone the instant the bang sounds.

She managed an extra fifteen seconds.

When she wakes up, she's back in the apartment, and she doesn't stop crying for three hours. Stephen's normally blank eyes study her with worry. He doesn't leave her side. Boo strokes her back and whispers comforting things. Eventually, Callum swears under his breath and leaves. He comes back quickly with ice cream.

Rory can't taste it. She can only feel the cold.

* * *

Jerome has her against the study room wall, his hand sliding down her side, careful to avoid her bandage.

She's getting really sick of doing this and getting nothing out of it. She's sick of having to deal with someone else's tongue invading her mouth. She's sick of her studying being interrupted. Escaping into her difficult schoolwork is the only break from her sick, twisted reality these days.

Thank God she never went to Bristol. She'd have went crazy. No. _Crazier_.

Because she _is_ mad, you know. Sometimes at night, she'll think she sees someone standing at the foot of her bed or beside her pillow or next to Jazza. She'll think she sees someone slinking around the shadows of the courtyard. A flash of a limb, a blink of clothing. Something, anything, every where, all the time.

Nothing is ever there.

Word has gotten around the ghost community of London that she's bad news, apparently. Now, the people of the afterworld have made it a habit to avoid her. Hide from her.

Being able to see the dead was bad.

Turns out _not_ seeing them is even worse.

Perhaps Stephen wasn't the last of the mad ones after all.

* * *

"I want to stop."

"What?"

"This. Whatever this is. I don't want to anymore."

"But… But Rory…"

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, darling! Look, I know I haven't been very assertive. I should have asked you out, proper. Asked you to be my girl. I know it hasn't been fair to you, just groping you every chance I get and never telling you how I feel-"

"It's not that. I just, I just can't handle any sort of relationship like this right now."

_Sure, Jerome, I'll go out with you! The movies? Of course! But if I'm constantly whipping my head around this way and that, sometimes shrieking in alarm, it's because I'm terrified some crazy ghost is going to come charging at me out of the shadows. Possibly with a murderous intent._

This new form of paranoia had come up the other day, when she'd been talking to Boo. So the shy, harmless ghosts were avoiding her? Great. What about the crazy, brazen, psychotic ghosts, like the Ripper? What about the ones that would take it upon themselves to rid their ghostly community of this dangerous American girl? The ones that would have no qualms about killing her.

"Rory, please don't do this."

"I'm sorry, Jerome. I just can't."

The only thing she felt as she walked away was a disgusting sense of disappointment in herself for not being the girl that would have loved him. She had been, once.

* * *

"Do you ever feel lucky?"

Stephen looks up at her, tilts his head quizzically. Looking into his eyes terrifies her a little, because she can see reflected there what she is slowly becoming.

Once, Boo had said she thought Stephen didn't have hormones. Rory knows better. Stephen has repressed absolutely everything, to the point where the world is a drab gray. It's the same for her these days. Colors, music, everything is muted. Duller, like it's going on behind a foggy lens. All of Stephen's emotions are pushed away. The only things he clings to are his curiosity and yearning for knowledge. Things that keep his brain busy, running, constantly working in an effort to avoid conscious thinking.

His hormones are the same. He has them; he just represses them. His sex drive is nonexistent because he never gives it any fuel. Like the two wolves in the old Native American proverb; he picks which of his own inner workings to feed. Sex is not one of them.

Which is really too bad, because try as she might not to, Rory can't help but watch him these days. After all, his present is her future. She'll probably be nothing but a walking shell sometime soon.

Maybe she should have went to Bristol.

Stephen's hair is rarely combed. Usually he just runs his hands through it in order to make it socially acceptable whenever he rolls out of bed. It's long, dusting across the tops of his ears and the back of his neck. He usually doesn't have dark circles under his eyes unless it's been a sleepless night, but his skin still looks tired sometimes, as though he's been repressing personal health in the interest of staying slightly sane.

His eyes, she notices, are clinical. Calculating, observant, detached. Rarely is there ever _true_ interest, and there is almost never emotion.

The only time there is a spark of life behind them is when he's looking at her. Watching as she sobs after another long day of exploding souls. Watching as she studiously goes through all of their files, learns all of their ways, in order to better integrate herself into their little family. Watches as she laughs with Boo and Callum.

Once, after the pseudo-breakup with Jerome, they'd been in a café across the street from the pub he'd been in. She hadn't realized she'd been staring across at him until Stephen cleared his throat.

"Do you miss him?" He had asked. And there had been that spark of life.

"No," Rory answered carefully. "No, I don't. I miss what we could have been. If I was who I used to be. He would have been good for that Rory. He would never understand _this _one."

Stephen had nodded, equally as carefully. "Well, _I_ understand _this _Rory."

And then the spark had died out again.

He answers now with as much care as he had then. "Do I ever feel lucky about what, exactly?"

They're alone in the apartment now; they're usually alone in the apartment these days. Boo and Callum have been getting closer. Rory is happy for them, and deep down she knows Stephen is too. But it sets Stephen on edge. She knows that she holds a part of him no one else does. She holds the mad, psychotic, old Stephen. The one that felt _too_ much.

She understands this one, too. The one that doesn't feel enough. She just doesn't hold him, yet, the way that she does his old self.

It freaks him out, and the part of her that isn't completely repressed yet, the part of her that refuses to go to sleep without a fight, finds it kind of funny that she can coax a jumpy reaction out of him.

"About living," she says absently, and he winces. She knows his suicide attempt is the subject he's terrified of being brought up.

"You mean, do I feel lucky about the chair being sat upright?" There's real venom in his voice.

"No," she says, fighting to keep her voice even. It still sends a sting through her whenever she thinks of Stephen, _poor sweet wonderful smart_ Stephen Dene in that much pain. "I mean, do you ever feel lucky about literally _being alive_. Do you ever feel grateful that you can pick up pretty much anything you want, and you can talk to people and… and you can _feel. _Like, physically."

The question takes him off guard. His expression changes from it's carefully controlled mask, and he looks utterly bewildered. "I've never thought about it."

"I can't taste anything anymore," she blurts. "I can't taste or listen to music or look at paintings when we go to museums as a class. I can't feel it when Jazza gives me hugs, and a huge part of the reason I broke things off with Jerome was because even though he would never have been able to understand me, I couldn't even enjoy it when he touched me! He would kiss me, and I'd find myself thinking about the report due the next day, or wondering if there'd be a ghost in the stall when I went to shower later-"

The tears that have been a long time coming burn behind her eyeballs. The nurse had cut off her emotional outburst that day in the hospital, and after that, she'd shut down completely.

Maybe she wouldn't turn out like Stephen after all. Maybe she just had to let it all out.

"Oh, Rory," Stephen sighs, and there's not only a spark in his eyes now, but real emotion. It is strong, fierce, beautiful, provocative. He is so sad for her, and it helps.

She's heaving and hiccupping, and her tears won't stop coming. She thinks she might start hyperventilating soon, but suddenly she can feel. She can feel the warmth of the sweater wrapped around her, one Stephen let her borrow when she came in earlier and shivered. She realizes she's been cold for a long time now, and has only just now noticed. She can taste the remnants of the iced tea she had for lunch.

She definitely feels it when Stephen slides behind her on the couch, wraps her up in his arms. She's strong, she realizes. She'd always assumes that being the academic type, Stephen wouldn't have muscles, but then she thinks about all the police training and the exercise sometimes required to do this job- running, climbing, jumping- and it makes sense.

He lies back, bringing her with him, cradling her between his hard body and the back of the sofa.

"You're okay, Rory. You're going to be fine."

"But you won't. I can tell, you repress everything, Stephen. You fight it all, every day, and I can't help but be terrified of that happening to me and I know that sounds awful and I'm sorry! It's just so hard, it's all so hard, and you make it look so easy to deal with, but really you're not dealing with any of it. I know you're like me, only times ten. You don't _feel_."

His entire body is taut and tense behind her, and then he sighs, and sags against her and the cushions, his body molding itself to hers in a way it hadn't before. "No. No, I feel, Rory. That's the problem."

"No, you're _scared_," she shot back. "_That's_ the problem."

"I'm crazy," he countered. "I have like, six doctor forms that tell me so."

"Then be crazy. Be crazy with Boo. Be crazy with Callum. Be crazy with _me_."

She's tired now. Feeling again takes a lot out of a person, apparently. Har dee har har. She falls asleep on the couch, with Stephen wrapped around her, or maybe she's wrapped up in Stephen. Whatever. Either way, it's pretty comfortable.

* * *

"_Oh, God_. **_Stephen!_**"

They've both been on edge for a couple of weeks. After they both started feeling again- Rory more quickly and fully than Stephen- they've both been super-sensitive emotionally. Stephen has been snapping at everyone, feeling overwhelmed all the time. Rory, however, can't get enough. She's hyper and she feels like her skin isn't enough to contain all this sensation.

Somehow, after Boo and Callum had left them alone once again in order to escape their psychotic tendencies and save their own sanity, when Stephen had been yelling at her to turn down her "obnoxious American music" and she'd responded by squealing and turning it up louder, she'd found herself pressed up against a wall roughly, facing Stephen and all his glorious emotions.

"Turn. It. Down." He'd growled.

"No." She'd snapped back, and in the next instant, her gaze had slid from his eyes to his lips because he'd turned his hormones back on apparently and the pheromones had been impossible to ignore.

Then their lips had crashed together and their tongues met and their clothes were quickly ripped off and now she was writhing underneath him, on his fabulously soft bed that smelled just like him.

His fingers and tongue all work together to build the frenzy within her. Her thoughts scatter, and she clings to her stream of consciousness and wraps his hair around her fingers tightly, terrified to let go. She's never felt anything like this, and she knows there's some sort of deep, huge abyss just waiting for her to be flung over the edge.

"Come for me, Rory," he breathes, his voice ragged and his breath hot against her thighs.

"I…" Her voice is quiet and small, uncertain, like the voice of so many shadow people that lurk in the underworld.

"Please. You taught me how to feel again. Now I want to give you everything you've given back to me." His voice is calm, steady. This is the Stephen she knows, but his eyes are brand new. His eyes hold all the emotions they've been missing. And there's passion underneath his suave tone now, not apathy.

Then his lips and his hands are back on her, and she rolls her hips against him.

The world explodes around her when she lets go for him. Her mind is going, going, gone. There is nothing left but this beautiful, terrifying, earth-shatteringly wonderful sensation.

When she comes back to herself, finally able to form a rational thought once more, she turns her head to find him lying beside her on the bed, stroking her hair back. His tongue has already traced the tender scar on her torso three or four times, and his eyes had continually found it in between ravaging the rest of her, but now he's staring right into her eyes, drinking her in.

"Hi," he grins.

His smile is extraordinary. Normally, she'd get a twitch of his lips. Now, she thinks this smile of his might be enough to make her heart stop.

"Hi," she breathes back, a goofy smile on her face, too.

This feels right. Very, very right. Stephen- mad, quiet, brilliant, handsome, introverted Stephen- is the one. He had been all along. He is her protector, her mentor, her counterpart.

He is the one she saw always standing beside her.

She rolls over so that she's on top of him, and proceeds to show him just how good losing your mind can be.

* * *

**Review? **


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